Mini vacation, much beauty, no accident...sort of

Duck Harbor sunset

The three nights, four days, in Wellfleet isn’t totally over so I don’t want to jinx myself, but at least the bike part is over and I only hurt myself a little. No, I didn’t fall off like I did the past two years. I don’t know how it happened, but when we were going up hills along the beautiful Ocean View Drive, one of the derailleurs came loose on the collapsible Birdy Bike and the chain dug into my leg. It was at a point when I COULD have fallen but I steadied myself and got off and my traveling bike mechanic got it back in place.

I’m not sure how far we rode, maybe 10 or 12 miles, with the hills making it more difficult than a flat of the same distance. We stopped at a couple of beaches, first at Newcomb Hollow, and looked somberly at the memorial for the 26-year-old surfer killed there last year in a shark attack. On a more cheerful note, we talked to a couple from Long Island, and with the woman I reminisced about back-to-school shopping in Cedarhurst and buying a plaid dress with my mother. I want to call the store Bib and Tucker but I might be making that up.

Down by the bay

I joked that the first full day I did a triathlon. First the bike ride, then a run on the beach, then a swim in the bay. I was hesitant about going in but a man and a woman who were in the water said it was warm, and someone else on the beach said, “No sharks.” That seems to be what people are thinking about these days. We talked to the Rec Department guy at the tennis courts, and he said he noticed over the summer that the crowds seemed a little diminished. Then some cute little kids showed up for soccer practice. The courts are next to the playground where Nell and Callen had such a good time this summer. We thought of “hitting a few,” as my father used to say, but we figured we could do that at home and we should do other things here. At low tide I found a crevice between two rocks and enjoyed watching the clam boats. You can’t do that at home.

2009, Eastham beach

The sunset at the bay was spectacular. As people arrived to watch it, I thought of watching the sunset at the bay in Eastham. The crowd clapped in appreciation in Eastham; over here in Wellfleet they don’t seem to be quite so ebullient. Different cultures, one town away, who knew.

 Down at the Eastham beach, Katie and I took the same photo on a log over a period of several years. One year I was recovering from lung surgery, before my first transplant, and they couldn’t leave me alone so I went on a vacation that Jim had planned with the kids. We did it other years just because it seemed to work. I found a photo of us recreating the pose in which we looked over our shoulders. It was in August, 2009, after my fourth transplant. My hair was a little different.